What’s wrong with the Dallin Oaks piece?
Other than your own dismissal of it because Dallin Oaks happens to be LDS?
If that’s all there is, you have a problem and you are standing out there all on your own; nobody else has a problem with that–not his university peer reviewers (from universities all over the country) nor his peers in the legal community (both practicing attorneys and judges) nor his scholarly peers.
Lots of reviews out there on this ‘Dallin Oaks piece,’ m’friend, and not one of them criticizes it on account of the author’s religion, or mentions any hint of religious bias.
…and trust me, if there were any, these folks would have nailed him to the wall for it.
well then let’s have alsit of all the reviewers and their religious affilitaions. Oaks has a reputation for “lying for the lord” and i am certainly not alone in that opinion. Oaks is a lawyer who has most certainly not convinced non-LDS legal authorities on the expositor debacle. he can hardly be considered an SMA on history so it’s ridiculous to hold him out as some scholarly authority writing an academic piece that “proves” something. his bias is obvious.
Moreover, despite Oaks’ mischievous misdirects, BYU history professor Thomas G. Alexander has explicitly and publicly acknowledged that there existed " no legal justification for the destruction of the [Nauvoo Expositor] press, and the proprietors might have sued the council for recovery of the machine’s value."
(Thomas Alexander, “The Church and the Law,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 1, Summer 1966, pp. 123-24),
”In the spring of 1844 . . . a small group of Mormon dissidents [in Nauvoo] founded a counter-organization and began publishing the . . . Expositor. They got out only one issue . . . which contained inflammatory allegations about the sex lives of the Mormon leaders and members.
“Smith, who was mayor, his brother Hyrum, vice-mayor, and the City Council, citing Blackstone on a community’s right to abate as a nuisance anything that disturbs the peace, declared the newspaper libelous and a public nuisance endangering civil order, and directed the city marshal to destroy that issue and the press.
“Some had argued for merely fining the libelers simply burning the papers, but Smith said he would ‘rather die tomorrow and have the thing smashed, than live and have it go on, for it was exciting the spirit of mobocracy . . . and bringing death and destruction upon us.’ The Council, which included at least one non-Mormon, concurred.
“Nothing could have provided better ammunition for the anti-Mormons in Illinois . . . Although suppression of inflammatory periodicals was not without precedent and abatement of a nuisance was within the powers of the city council, leaders of the anti-Mormon party were quick to raise the issue of freedom of the press.”
(Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints [New York, New York: Alfred A,[, Knopf, 1979], pp. 77-78),
". . . [W]hen Joseph Smith ordered the actual destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor printing press, he provided his enemies with a clearly legitimate means of arresting him for violation of the law. They seized upon this to inflame the public even more, and this led directly to [his] assassination.
“Some people may be disturbed by the suggestion that Joseph Smith acted illegally in this instance, but it is important to understand that under the tense pressures of the times he, too, may have made a mistake.”
(James B. Allen, Brigham Young University Today, March 1976, p.10
Dallin Oaks says: “Our individual, personal testimonies are based on the witness of the Spirit, not on any combination or accumulation of historical facts. If we are so grounded, no alteration of historical facts can shake our testimonies.” (“1985 CES Doctrine and Covenants Symposium,” Brigham Young University, Aug. 16, 1985, page 26)
1818 Illinois State Consitution, (Article VIII) 22. The printing presses shall be free to every person, who undertakes to examine the proceedings of the general assembly or of any branch of government; and no law shall ever be made to restrain the right thereof. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write, and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.
shall we look at what Steve Benson reports from his interviews with Oaks? or will you dismiss him as an apostate?
at best oaks gives us only speculation. no evidence is conclusive but it seems more plausible that JS believed the nauvoo legion was coming to bail him out. it is also interesting to note the faith promoting accounts skip over the these men drinking and smoking in the cell as well as just what the expositor was revealing about joseph. the enemies he was making inside his church were far more dangerous than those without. (who were still quite a problem thanks to rigdon pouring gas on the fire tht JS lit). this was not a religious martyr this was a conman caught redhanded who unfortunately was murdered by his enemies thus leading to a golden opportunity for BY to grab the “cream” of the true believers and setup his despotic rule in Utah.
I think if Joseph would not have been killed then the LDS church would be no more visible than it’s remnants that stayed behind (strangites, bickertonites, etc.) Killing Joseph Smith was the worst thing that could have happened. it was blatantly illegal, extremely immoral, cowardly and resulted in a multitude of satan’s delights
